For anyone unaware of Pbrainey, hello. I'm not entirely surprised you haven't heard of him, as until late last year, neither had I. I met him at a Leeds comic thing, and swapped a copy of my very own publication Notes magazine for part one of his time-travel epic "There's No Time Like The Present" of which I recently bought part 12. The final part is due out very soon, and I'll be doing a review of it all when I have it. He tells me he doesn't normally do swaps as he tends to end up with some rubbish he doesn't like... but he seemed to enjoy Notes, thankfully.
He's a prolific comic book writer and artist, very methodical and a great story-teller. He also answers his emails, posts various blogs and is generally an all-round good egg. Some people say he looks like Howard from the Halifax adverts, but you should never say that to his face. Personally I think he looks more like a Megabus driver called Norm:
He's a prolific comic book writer and artist, very methodical and a great story-teller. He also answers his emails, posts various blogs and is generally an all-round good egg. Some people say he looks like Howard from the Halifax adverts, but you should never say that to his face. Personally I think he looks more like a Megabus driver called Norm:
As you can see in that photo, he did this thing called "The Book of Lists". What's that then? Well, as mentioned he's very methodical, and self confessed to being quite obsessive about particular things. As such, he keeps a book of lists. Lists of what? Everything. Lists of things his workmates eat, lists of things to worry about, lists of farts, lists of drunken occasions, lists of lies, lists of compliments received... it just goes on and on! Some of the list subjects are incredibly obscure and make you laugh before you even begin to read them...
The book in question compiles a vast selection of these lists, but drawn out in a comic book style. This is highly entertaining. Many sections are funny, some are serious, but all are very honest and open. He concentrates on the small details that make you laugh but are normally quickly forgotten. Things we can all relate to and understand, even things you would never publicly discuss but always think about.
I guess it's easier to show you what I mean than to describe everything, so here are some examples taken from his website:
The last of these three example pages features my favourite picture in the whole book, which you can see at the bottom right hand corner.
Since I bought this book (originally due to lack of patience with the frequency of the aforementioned There's No Time Like The Present series, but wanting some more Pbrainey action) I have read it a good 5 times at least, from cover to cover... and sometimes I just pick it up and read a random one. I've also shared it with a few people, and what happens is always the same: I pass the book to someone, to show them a particularly funny list. They laugh, then read the next one... and the next... until eventually they reach the back cover. Then they start at the beginning and read up to where they started off originally! That is definitely the sign of a good book in my eyes!
You can read a load of his comics for free on his site here:
You can read a load of his comics for free on his site here:
You can also buy the Book of Lists from there, for the very reasonable cost of £10.95 including postage and packing (within the UK). That might sound like quite a lot, but I've easily had my money's worth out of it already, and I will no doubt re-visit it on many occasions to come!
...or you can just read the freebies and have a little chuckle to yourself. I especially enjoy this one:
And on that bombshell I will leave you to read at your leisure, and hopefully you'll give the man a few coppers. Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment